Ripening in the garden this afternoon are the last of the ‘White Marseille’ figs (Ficus carica); the first, and therefore somewhat miraculous, harvest for 14 years. On either side of the fig are the fruiting canes of the pink, seedless ‘Reliance’ grape (Vitis vinifera) and in the front garden, a handful of Chilean guava (Ugni molinae) berries that survived the drought earlier in the year are developing their burgundy shine. The honeyberries (Lonicera caerulea) and pinkberries (actually a pink blueberry, Vaccinium ‘Pink Lemonade’) also fruited for the first time this year and there were a even couple of mulberries  on the juvenile ‘Charlotte Russe’ (developed from Morus rotundiloba), although I have to say I’m still unconvinced about their quality in terms of flavour.

When I saw these figs I could hardly believe they were real

We had a fair apple harvest from our espalier ‘James Grieve’ and ‘Egremont Russet’, although ‘Bountiful’ and ‘Fiesta’ sulked all spring and produced not one blossom. The plum (Prunus domestica ‘Opal’) had a successful year and the greengage (Prunus domestica subsp. italica ‘Cambridge Gage’) also produced a good harvest, although due to poor timing on our part we were away when the fruit ripened and on our return all that remained were a series of wasps’ bottoms poking provocatively out of each syrupy gage.

After 13 quinces last year, this haul was an utter delight

Quantity of Quince

But the delight of the year has been the success of our appealingly dishevelled quince tree (Cydonia oblonga), the aptly named ‘Meeches Prolific’. A couple of weeks ago, at five years old, it delighted us all with a harvest of around 100-150 small fruits, picked by my husband and daughter, each quince carefully handed down from the tree and placed reverently in a bucket which it soon became clear was far too small for the seemingly limitless supply hidden beneath the foliage. The quince harvest alone made my year in the garden complete. My only regret, fruit-wise, is the lack of space for that king of trees – the medlar.

The medlars in the community garden are cropping well this autumn

Meeting Medlars

I first discovered medlars when I moved down to Hertfordshire in 2003. Until that moment my fruit aspirations went no further than childhood memories of my dad’s ‘Laxton’s Superb’ apple trees, bilberries foraged on the Welsh mountains and the loganberry – a fruit that attained an almost mythic status in my memory as the sweetest food on earth when eaten warm from Aunty Florence’s garden, the berries almost as big as my mouth. But I’d never encountered anything like the medlar. Here was a fruit that offered neither immediate candied delight, nor vibrant hues; a fruit whose dun, leathery skin seemed a deliberate indication of its disinclination to be eaten. I was intrigued.

A most unassuming fruit

The tree stood in the corner of my friends’ new garden – a modest, rather overgrown patch with unexpected treasures lurking at the back of each brimming border. Their area has a rich horticultural history: situated on the borders of a medieval park dating from before 1380, then developed into a town pleasure garden in the 18^th century. With the cottages and gardens themselves dating back to 1820s and 30s, theirs was a historically interesting garden with dynamic borders full of flowers and fruit – redcurrants, damsons, gooseberries, blackberries, quince, raspberries, rosemary, campanula, hollyhocks and clematis.

The garden in winter and with spring blossom (Image credit: Lindsay Cook)

I was attracted to the story behind this garden and the questions behind the design – who had planted with this balanced purpose of beauty and productivity – and what had the garden meant to them? Why had they chosen the majestic medlar as the cornerstone of the garden and what did they do with the fruits? The garden and its medlar tree ignited my interest in unconventional fruits and the stories that they can tell. We harvested the medlars in the garden for several years, bletting the fruits, watching the disintegration of the skins as the not-quite rotting took place and savouring the smoky date-apple flavours of the jellies and cheeses that we produced using methods that have been around for hundreds of years.

Beautiful, yet the undignified butt of many an ancient joke

Ancient Fruit

Both quinces and medlars were once popular fruit in the UK. In 1629 John Parkinson, Royal Botanist to Charles I, lists three varieties of medlars and six of quince in his study of plant cultivation, Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris. Gervase Markham (1568-1637) has advice for both ‘husbandmen’ and ‘housewives’ regarding storing and cooking these fruit. Husbandmen should ‘gather [medlars] about the midst of October after such time as the frost hath nipt and bitten them’ and lay them in ‘thicke woollen cloathe, and about the cloathes good store of hay, & someother waight of boards’ to heat them and bring them to a ‘perfect rottenesse.’ Quinces, on the other hand, should be stored away from other fruit ‘because their sent is so strong and piercing, that it will enter into any fruit, and cleane take away his naturall rellish’.

One of the joys of growing quinces is their pale, cupped blossom in mid spring

In The Well-Kept Kitchen, as well as advising housewives in matter of religion, temperance, dress sense and their knowledge of gardening, Markham also includes instruction in the art of  making quince conserve, preserve, cake, paste and marmalade. 200 years later Eliza Acton continues the tradition with her recipes for quince juice, custard, jellies and marmalade, whilst Isabella Beeton’s 1860s recipes for medlar jelly and mebrillo (quince cheese) are the ones we use in our kitchen today.

Quince cheese – a special autumn treat

Soup Tales

Many years ago at university I bought Soup & Beyond by the New Covent Garden Soup Company – an exploratory cookery book for which we were required to ditch our student staples of chicken, pasta and cheese, and explore hitherto unknown ingredients like dill, lovage, buckwheat and buttermilk. One of the recipes for prince and pedlar soup looked intriguing, but I was at a loss to source the strange fruits so as I worked my way through the other recipes the prince and the pedlar remained uncooked, forgotten for the last twenty years. Yesterday, with huge piles of quince fragrantly ripening in boxes in the kitchen I remembered the old recipe and unearthed the soup book. 

The downy coating on an unripe quince disappears as it ripens

Although we have a few foraged medlars they haven’t yet completely bletted, so this time I’ve substituted one of our Egremont Russet apples as suggested in the recipe:

Ingredients

50g (2oz) butter

575g (11b 5oz) quince (approx 3), peeled, cored and roughly chopped

1 russet apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped (or bletted medlar – I’d use 3/4 and just add the flesh to the soup mix)

1 teaspoon tumeric

1.25 litres chicken stock

3 tablespoons single cream

2 egg yolks

salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the quince, medlar and tumeric. Cook over a low heat for 10 minutes. Add the stock, bring to the boil and then turn down the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Take off the heat and leave to cool.

Process in a liquidiser until smooth, then return to the pan. Beat the cream and egg yolks together, add a ladle full of soup to this mixture then pour into the soup. Cook gently over a low heat until the mixture thickens, stirring continuously. Season to taste.

From New Covent Garden Soup Company’s Soup & Beyond (1999)

The Taste of History

Prince and Pedlar Soup finally in the flesh

Supper is now served: a warm yellow soup with a silky texture and a mellow sweet and sour flavour that reminds me of parsnip and orange. I’ve made cheese bread, so we’re all sorted for the evening. Whether your taste is for soups, jellies, poached fruit, marmalade or membrillo, quinces and medlars have so much potential and they deserve to be remembered.

What are your favourite autumn fruit recipes? Do you have any special quince and medlar concoctions? If so, please leave me a comment so that I can try them too. Thank you.

The offending articles

When my godson was three his favourite foods were apples and peas: a predilection that I naively assumed was the norm for small children. As my son started on solid foods I offered him fruit and vegetables with enthusiastic expectations, only to find he cried when peas appeared on his plate and the concept of eating apple brought on sulking and tantrums.

Perplexed, I persevered – we sowed seeds together, pricked out tomato seedlings, watched apples swell and picked as many colourful crops as we could – yellow ‘Allgold’ raspberries, ‘Purple Haze’ carrots, ‘Pinkberry’ blueberries, deep red ‘Boltardy’ beetroot, striped ‘Green Tiger’ tomatoes and purple-podded ‘Blauwschokker’ peas.

Vivid colours motivate children to try new foods…

Gradually he started trying a wider range of fruit and vegetables – it’s hard not to get excited about ripening tomatoes when you can remember pushing the seeds into moist compost with your fingers. That was over 5 years ago, and this week my daughter (6) decided she likes our homegrown beetroot and my son (now 9) ate one of our James Grieve apples whole – an unimaginable feat just a year ago. 

First steps – sowing seeds…

We have all benefited from growing food as a family. Each spring we choose our crops for the next growing season and from that moment, the anticipation begins. This February we made our choices and were soon surrounded by a colourful collection of seed packets from the Fun To Grow range, courtesy of Suttons Seeds. We began with Table Top Tomato, sowing the seeds almost immediately, then started off the delightfully alliterative Crocodile Cucumber, Mini Muncher Peas, spherical Bowling Carrots and the non-edible but nonetheless exciting Dancing Plant and Caterpillar Plant a few weeks later.

Pleased with the new arrivals

Recycling has been a family priority this year, so we began by making our own seed pots out of old newspaper. It’s a fun job and the kids quickly got the hang of wrapping the paper strips at just the right tension so they would slide off easily once the bottoms had been firmly secured.

First job: roll the pot sides

Pressing down the base firmly ensures the compost won’t escape later

Then we filled our pots with compost and read the seed packet instructions – learning about the varying depths, light conditions and germination temperatures that different seeds require. 

Writing labels

Once the pots were labelled, we counted the days until germination and slowly but surely tiny shoots and seed leaves began to appear. The appearance of new growth, that magical emergence, fills cold spring days with joy for adult gardeners – so what a wonderful experience for young children for whom the world is naturally filled with enchantment. 

Crocodile cucumber buckets

In late spring we planted the Crocodile Cucumbers into a couple of broken buckets, the Table Top Tomatoes went in the greenhouse with the Caterpillar Plants, and the Mini Muncher Peas and Bowling Carrots began developing in the vegetable beds.

Table Top Tomatoes were a sweet hit with the kids

We ate peas fresh from the pod throughout June and the tomatoes are still being picked and ripening in the greenhouse. The cucumbers have produced so many fruit that we’ve had enough for tzatziki – another first for the kids, declared ‘delicious’ and requested as a regular dip with pitta and olives. 

Tasty Mini Muncher Peas are so low growing that they need no staking and are easily accessible for small people

These ‘Boltardy’ beets were harvested by the kids for Beetroot and Chocolate cupcakes

The Caterpillar Plants have bloomed all summer in the greenhouse – tiny yellow flowers which have turned into the eponymous caterpillars curled back on their stems, providing seeds for sowing next year. The Sensitive Plants didn’t germinate, so no scientific experiments to test whether the foliage responds to our touch this year. But it’s good that the kids experience growing failures as well as successes – one of the realities of working with nature.

These delicate, furry caterpillars delighted the kids

Growing our own crops has, without doubt, had a positive effect on the way my kids approach what’s on their plates. But learning about how plants grow, how they provide for us and for wildlife, goes deeper than this. Such experiences help to form lifelong relationships with nature and develop an understanding of its fundamental role in our lives – providing us with enjoyment, wonder and the food upon which we rely.

I can’t believe it’s already time to decide which bulbs to grow next spring. It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally managed to whittle the current list down to ten – based on the most reliable, perennial and beautiful varieties we’ve grown in the past 15 years…

1. ‘Ballerina’

It thrives in my gravel garden despite clay soil, although I do plant all of my tulips with a handful of gravel beneath each bulb. I combine ‘Ballerina’ with ‘Queen of Night’ in the front gravel garden. In the back flowerbed it blooms alongside ‘Purple Prince’, ‘Queen of Night’ and blue forget-me-nots and never fails to lift my spirits when I see it emerging in the spring.

The versatile ‘Ballerina’ thrives in the back garden, front garden and in pots

2. ‘Swan Wings’

Generally I favour simple shapes and colours with my tulips, but I photographed ‘Swan Wings’ years ago at RHS Wisley and have always wanted to grow it. Maybe this year’s the year…

3. ‘Queen of Night’

I love deep purple/black flowers and foliage; I use them in my garden and my work as often as I can. I’ve been growing ‘Queen of Night’ for years and find it reliably perennial. It combines well with lighter purple and orange tulips, but also looks stunning with white or off-white bedding plants. It works well combined with wallflower ‘Ivory White’.

4. ‘Mistress Mystic’

Combining style and subtlety, ‘Mistress Mystic’ has a vintage allure and charm all of her own. We grew this in the allotment last year; it lasted well in arrangements and worked beautifully with other soft white, green and pink tulips.

‘Mistress Mystic’ is one of the most elegant tulips

5. ‘Prinses Irene’

Possibly one of the most beautiful tulips we’ve ever grown, ‘Prinses Irene’ is a subtle, understated winner. They thrived in pots and we’ve also been impressed by  ‘National Velvet’ which we grow alongside and which has a superb colour and sheen.

‘Prinses Irene’ and ‘National Velvet’

6. ‘Purissima’

Another favourite is ‘Purissima’ with its white/cream flowers which open up to dinner-plate size in the sun. It is a reliably perennial tulip and has lasted several years in big pots in the garden.

In pots with wild strawberries at the back and with mixed muscari at the front

7. ‘Shirley’

‘Shirley’ was the only tulip in the first garden I owned, although I didn’t know its name at the time. I loved its soft markings and photographed it in wonder. I think it’s about time I grew it again…

‘Shirley’ in my first ever garden

It looks great in a pot (with ‘Jackpot’) or in borders (with ‘Paul Scherer’ at the back)

8. ‘Purple Prince’

We grew ‘Purple Prince’ a few years ago to create a purple accent against the orange of ‘Ballerina’ and dark purple of ‘Queen of Night’, then decided we preferred the orange and dark purple on their own and marked the ‘Purple Prince’ tulips so we could remove the bulbs after flowering. Two years on they are still appearing en masse in the flowerbed so we’ve decided they can stay, especially when this serendipitous combination appeared as ‘Purple Prince’ emerged in front of the foliage of the Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’. 

9. ‘Zurel’

When we moved into my current house 6 years ago there was a purple and white rembrandt tulip in a border we had to remove to make room for the apple espaliers. We replaced it the next year with ‘Zurel’ – a striking, upbeat tulip. Unfortunately the bulbs didn’t reappear – probably because we overwintered the pineapple sage (which was sharing the same pot) in the greenhouse and they dried out. The area at the end of the vegetable beds hasn’t looked the same and we definitely need to get our stripes back.

 10. ‘Slawa’

For maximum impact in the garden and in a vase, ‘Slawa’ doesn’t disappoint. It grew well in the allotment cutting patch and its rich two-toned flowers added a bit of spice to all my spring arrangements.

More tulip images from my albums which have me reaching for the catalogues…

Which tulips can’t you be without and which new ones have bewitched you? Leave me a comment so I can make my wish list even longer  😉

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In 2012, Oxford University Press removed around 50 nature words from the new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary, replacing them with technological terms such as ‘chatroom’, ‘attachment’ and ‘broadband’. As Robert MacFarlane writes in his extraordinary celebration of the language of landscape and natural life, Landmarks, ‘for blackberry, read BlackBerry‘. These substitutions reflect changing times, with three-quarters of children now spending less time in the natural environment than prison inmates. The OJD word lists are taken from data compiled from children across the country and highlight the way experiences in nature are disappearing from many young lives. Without the vocabulary to describe a bluebell or wren, how can we expect the next generation to recognise, value and conserve the natural world for the future?

Learning about wildflowers in a Wiltshire meadow, photo credit (c): James King

One way to engage kids with the natural world over the summer holidays is to take part in campaigns such as Plantlife’s Great British Wildflower Hunt. It’s always fun to search for species to tick off – I remember many happy hours with the I-Spy books as a child – and it’s a way for adults and children to work together, sharing experiences and knowledge. When adults communicate their passion for nature to children some of the magic inevitably rubs off. I was reminded of the potency of inspiration last autumn when I asked the question ‘What began your love of gardening?’ Of the 200 or more responses, almost all began with tales of a grandparent, parent or family friend who took the time to share their love for the gardening and natural world.

Dandelion contemplation, photo credit: Plantlife Kim Newman

Plantlife outlines two compelling reasons why we should spend more time on our hands and knees exploring the world of wildflowers close up. Firstly, wildflowers are beautiful. Yesterday, while walking in a local nature reserve with my dad, we spotted some hedge woundwort (Stachys sylvatica). It’s a tall but modest plant in the mint family, but on closer inspection the tiny hooded flowers, circling the stem in whorls, have intricate white patterning on the deep red-purple lower lips which reminded me of the elaborate markings on orchid labella.

Children love to explore nature closely, photo credit: Plantlife Kim Newman

Secondly, Plantlife reminds us of the undeniable, but often overlooked fact that ‘wildflowers are vital to our planet. So much depends on them – bees, butterflies and us.’ As many of us are aware, in the past century we have lost 97% of our wildflower meadows, species-rich grasslands which were 6,000 years in the making. As these habitats disappear, they take with them populations of wildflowers like bird’s-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and bee orchids (Ophrys apifera), and native grasses like sheep’s fescue (Festuca ovina) and soft brome (Bromus hordeaceus). 

Common bird’s-foot trefoil, photo credit: (c) Plantlife Trevor Dines

Getting involved in the Great British Wildflower Hunt is easy. You can choose to search in a town or city, or in the countryside – there are different resources for each location. The Wildflower Hunt materials include activities for families and there are spotter sheets to download. Results can be submitted online and even if you don’t manage to find any wildflowers on your hunt, it doesn’t matter. All data is valuable to build a picture of the state of wildflower populations in the UK.

Common Knapweed, photo credit: (c) Plantlife Trevor Dines

Last year, from the Channel Islands to the Orkney Islands, more than 15,200 wild flowers were spotted by the British public. 15% of participants started out saying they couldn’t name any wildflowers and were ‘unsure’ of their identification abilities, but they completed the hunt which was a fantastic achievement.  At the other end of the scale, thirteen hunters scored a full house, finding all the species on their spotter sheets and scoring the maximum 37 points.

Celandines in Camarthan, photo credit: (c) Trevor Dines

So do something special this summer and take a walk on the wildflower side. I’m looking forward to getting out and about, exploring new sites on our holidays and adding our records to Plantlife’s database. Hopefully our sightings will be a small step along the route to conserving our native flora and I’m sure we’ll have a lot of fun along the way.

Fun in the bluebells woods, photo credit: Plantlife Kim Newman

Featured image photo credit: Nicola Acketts

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Yesterday there was a frantic scramble at the breakfast table – there was a fieldfare in the birch tree – the first we’d ever seen in our garden. Later, as I drove down the Bedfordshire lanes on the way to visit a friend, I saw fieldfare in the hedgerows and when I arrived there were redwings and fieldfare in her garden – again the first they’d ever seen. In the last few days, thousands of fieldfare and redwings have arrived from Northern Europe and they’ve been seeking out gardens in search of food and shelter. There have been so many that the RSPB organised an impromptu redwing and fieldfare count today and reports of large flocks have been sent in from all over the country.

Fieldfare in the snow (image: Alan Garner)

It’s a rare treat to see these birds so close to home, but they are visiting gardens because of the harsh weather and they act as a reminder that all garden birds need our help in the cold weather. The RSPB recommend:

• providing fatty food, making fat balls and homemade bird cakes, and putting out kitchen scraps such as mild grated cheese, porridge oats and soaked, chopped currants, although be aware that currants are poisonous to dogs
• providing water – with a ping pong ball in the bowl to stop it freezing or putting out juicy fruit like apples and pears
• providing shelter – nest boxes work well and will be used by garden birds like long-tailed tits for roosting
• offering winter shelter such as in evergreen climbers, dense hedges like privet and hawthorn, and evergreen shrubs and trees
• even if you don’t have bird boxes or evergreen shelter, the RSPB advises propping a bucket up sideways or grouping plants in containers together to provide some shelter from the wind

Considering the fact that around one quarter of a typical UK city comprises private gardens and that the total area of UK gardens is roughly equivalent to an area one fifth the size of Wales, the potential for gardeners to make a real difference to the fate of our garden birds is clear. Our birds need a little help from us and in return we get to watch one of nature’s most beautiful sights from the comfort of our own homes.

Another occasional winter visitor to our garden (image: Alan Garner)

What birds has the Beast from the East brought to your garden this week? Do you have any tips for ways to help our garden birds through this cold spell? Please leave your comments below. Thank you.

More information on feeding garden birds is available from the RSPB website.